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Tuesday, 29 November 2016

Capturing Confidence - Part 2

Welcome Back!

So, here is the juicy post you've all been waiting for, the call to action post, the I'm going to solve all your problems post...

Accept I'm not — you are!

You see I'm just here to facilitate, suggest and guide, and what I'm hoping is that you will feel empowered and inspired enough to make the changes you need in your life to feel more confident.

Now if you haven't already read Part 1 of Capturing Confidence, where you can find out the result of my survey on what influences your confidence level and why, then you can read it right here.

Starting something new

Essentially when we talk about having more confidence it's actually means starting something new, even if you have or do feel confident in some areas of your life, building it up in your problem area will be something brand new to you and it can be hard to know how to get that started.

I believe there are certain building blocks for having confidence, which are:

Being brave/strong

Believing in yourself/your identity

Not worrying about others opinions

Giving yourself permission to be you

Challenging yourself

Rewarding yourself

Acknowledging your success

Supporting others

So bearing these in mind, here are some mini exercises you can do to start creating and building those confidence levels up.

When we try to install confidence in our big girl and she's feeling nervous or anxious about something in her little world we remind her of one of her stories — and most of us have one too.

Your story will be a time when you showed courage or strength in a particular event or circumstance in your life, now it could have happened when you were young or just yesterday, it doesn't matter when and this will be your story of when you did something that made you feel scared, but you did it anyway.

For example one of our daughter's is the time she jumped into Bass Lake, we were on one of trips to Canada and she had been in the hot tub with her godmother who jumped in to the freezing lake afterwards. Our daughter was only 4yo at the time but she insisted she wanted to do the same, so she took the biggest leap off the decking and jumped into the water and was quickly scooped up by her godmother! This was all her, no one suggested it, it was just something she wanted try, she was scared but she still wanted to do it and we caught it all on video and when she feels scared or nervous now, this is one of her stories that we tell her and she can watch too!

So what's your story? Write it down, print it out on to pretty paper and hang it somewhere you can see every day, frame a picture from that moment and keep it with you or stick it on your mirror, find any way to portray your story, get as creative as you like and put it on display, tell it to yourself and others over and over again and don't forget to share it with me using the hashtag #365ccmystory

A quick simple way to feel more confident is to use the power of perspective and here I want you refocus yours by asking yourself what would you tell your sister, mother, daughter, friend or work colleague to do? Sometimes when we put ourselves in other peoples shoes not only does it install empathy in us it also give us an insight into a different way of thinking, here's how it works...

Your best friend calls you up and tells you she has a job interview/date/meeting next week, this is really important to her but she is worried about what to say/wear/bring — you get the picture right?Now what would you tell her? OK, now apply that to yourself and the situation that's challenging your confidence. There's some rules here though, you're not allowed to say to yourself that you can't do that or follow this advice, you have to take something, anything from the advice you would give someone else and use it for you, so it could be wearing a new lipstick or scarf, making up a positive mantra, writing it on post it notes and sticking them all over your house and car, it could be learning to take 3 deep cleansing breaths before you all in to the room/bar/building. You get the idea, so try giving advice to someone else and then using it for yourself.

Try these out and let me know how you get on...

Now for me part of building and maintaining my confidence levels is to reward myself when I am brave or do something positive to feel good about myself and this should be part of your confidence building journey too. So I want you right now to commit to celebrating yourself and here are some ideas on how you can do this and if you're an introvert, don't worry I have some suggestions for you too...

Treating yourself to something new that inspires you to feel confident, this can be anything!

Planning a little celebration with friends or family to celebrate your success.

Take yourself out on a date, just you, with coffee ad cake and reveal in your awesomeness.

Take some relaxation time to reflect, write down your successes and achievements in a capturing confidence journal, this can also serve as a reminder when you need an extra bit of motivation or strength to feel good about yourself.

Ideas to keep you moving forward

So you've practiced some tips and ideas to start making some changes and getting your confidence levels boosted, you've celebrated your success, what next then?

Well I think it's important to understand that your well being as whole is something that you should always continue to invest in and nurture to evolve, there is no one size fits all or quick fix to building emotional and mental resilience, it's something you have to always work at and this where I think many people get stuck so I've compiled so helpful inspiration and resources to help you to continue with your journey...

People to follow

Here are some amazing ladies that I have and still do draw inspiration from:

Links and Apps to look at

Final Thoughts...

Our confidence levels are most definitely tied up in our emotional well being, as I've already said there's no one time fix it all for getting that perfect or complete. Our emotional well being, and in fact our sense of confidence, faith and belief in ourselves is a life long journey that you have to continually invest in, nurture and work at.

It is something that will evolve over time as we grow and expand as people, it is something that we all have to practice maintaining on a daily basis and at times we will stumble and fall down, make mistakes, fail and get things wrong and I want you to start telling yourself that this is ok, because they are learning opportunities, they will tell you so much about what you want from life, who you are and how you can move forward, those awkward moments build confidence if you'll just let them.

Be kind and gentle on yourself, show yourself some compassion when life doesn't work out or you get it wrong, don't waste time and energy worrying about things that might not happen or what others think, put that energy in to you, not situations you can't control.

So when it gets difficult please remind yourself that there is no magic wand, you create the magic by investing in you, keep working at it and don't expect perfection, confidence is not a race and it will come if you work hard to build it.

Welcome to the start of something new, a different path, welcome to the start of your confidence journey...

Lastly a big thank you to everyone who took part in the survey and for being so patient while I put this together, spending so much time on this has filled my brain up with so many thoughts and ideas and what I've shared here is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to say so I am now going to embark on a little journey of confidence building myself and I am going to create this into an online course for next year - it feels nerve wracking to say that out load, I've never written a course before but this is where it's my turn to push myself and build up confidence and do something I have never done and not let those little voices tell me I can't!

Now I would love you to get in touch if you have any more thoughts on this yourself - is there something you would like to see me cover in more detail? Is there something that you feel really stuck on that you need some more support or clarification on? I would really love the content to be driven by the people who will use it, you can email me at 365pearlsofwisdom@gmail.com